Beautiful movie-clip constellation

Does anyone know how this effect has been achieved in Flash. What i am trying to do is duplicate movie clips dynamically, with random scale and rotation over a defined hit area, (2007, in the istock example) but without having them overlap each other.

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/how/style_and_design/backgrounds/2579630_happy_new_year.php?id=2579630